


Bring Me Winter, My Dear December

by lizardhair



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, I just have a lot of feelings about Nora Fries, Ice Powers, Metahumans, Strong Female Characters, True Love, so watch the queen conquer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-03 18:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15824415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardhair/pseuds/lizardhair
Summary: "Victor cannot be dead. Not now. Not while I still have breath."---AKA "Nora Fries was always more than a motivational plot device."





	Bring Me Winter, My Dear December

“I gave / my breath / on your lips it froze” _-December_ by Seven Lions

* * *

 

 

She opened her eyes to a pale blue world and exhaled frost. _What happened? Waking up has never been like this._

She took a shaky step from her cryostasis pod, legs trembling like those of a newborn fawn. She fell after only a few more paces. When her hands and knees hit the cement floor, a thin layer of rime formed around the points of impact.

Gasping, she reeled back in shock. _This cannot be real. How could…? Why would…?_

“Dear?” She said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Too _smooth,_ somehow. “Where are you? What’s going on?” She pushed herself to her feet, still shaking, and looked properly at the room that she had awoken in.

It was small, perhaps 15 by 15 feet. There was just enough space for her pod and a tall, round table. On the center of the table there sat a grey cassette player.

Carefully, slowly, bare feet leaving faint tracks behind her, she made her way to the table. But standing before the cassette player, she felt a sudden fear constrict her chest. _Whatever that tape says, I don’t want to hear it._

She rubbed her arms, shivering, stalling. Then she felt something odd beneath the sleeve of her cardigan. Something cold. She tore the cardigan off, exposing her bare arms. For a moment, her brain could not process what her eyes saw. On the inner crook of both of her elbows, her brown skin had turned to glass.

“No, not glass,” she whispered, sick realization dawning. _“Ice.”_

Tilting her arms to the pale blue light emitted by her pod, she could make out a spiderweb of pale arteries and veins just under her skin, culminating in the patch of ice where her elbows bent. In the center of both patches was a small hole. Like those a needle would make.

Her breath quickened, expelling clouds of frost. She felt lightheaded. _He...why…?_

As though moving of their own accord, her bone-thin fingers pressed the play button down with a _click._ The machine whirred, tape inside beginning to unspool.

_“My beloved Nora,”_ said the voice of Victor Fries. _“If you are hearing this, your treatment and subsequent recovery were successful. I am...so very happy.”_ A pause. _“Unfortunately, it also means that I am more than likely dead.”_ Another pause, longer this time.

_“The final component to your cure was under the control of Black Mask and his so-called “gang.” I could not pay for it, and I could not synthesize it myself. This left me with one option: steal it.”_ A tired laugh, of the sort Nora knew so well. _“And so, I did. I stole the component, and Black Mask will undoubtedly have me killed for it.”_ Nora pictured Victor shaking his head the way he used to whenever he was working on a particularly difficult formula.

_“You would think a simple beating would suffice, but that is not the case. Black Mask enjoys making..._ examples _out of those who cross him, so as to dissuade others from doing the same. Bothersome man.”_

Nora squeezed her eyes shut, holding back tears. _How can you be so calm about this, Victor? You’re talking about being_ murdered, _not tomorrow’s_ weather forecast!

_“But for you, my love, I would do anything. Death means nothing to me, so long as you are alive.”_

Nora sobbed--Victor always could read her mind.

_“So please, live your life. Be happy. Dance the way you did when we first met, before your illness struck. Before all of this happened.”_ Now Nora could hear the waver in her husband’s voice. _“And leave this damned city, I beg of you. There are safer shores than these, a brighter sky than this.”_

Nora’s tears turned to glittering ice as they fell from her eyes, shattering on the floor. Her body felt numb.

_“The day you first entered your cryogenic chamber, we did not say a traditional farewell. Instead, you insisted that we tell one another “see you soon,” because you had faith that we would. You trusted in me, in my abilities, in my determination, and in my love for you. Thank you, my  dearest, for believing in me. Thank you for always--”_

Victor’s voice broke. Nora heard him take several deep breaths before continuing.

_“And so, even on this final day, I will not say goodbye. Nora, my most beloved: I will see you soon.”_

The cassette clicked to a stop, and the room fell silent.

Until Nora screamed. Her eyes shut as she fell to her knees, her wordless scream continuing even when she tasted blood. _All this time trying to keep_ me _alive, and now this? This?_

She did not know how long she knelt there, crying. It was only upon opened her red-rimmed eyes that Nora realized what she had done. Every surface in the small room had been covered by a layer of iridescent ice. The walls, the floor, the ceiling; all had been frozen over by her newfound abilities. Even the table and the tape player were embedded in a stalagmite of pure ice.

Nora looked at the icicles that had formed in her cryostasis pod, then at her frail hands. _Am I...really that powerful? Is this how Victor feels?_

At the thought of her husband, Nora clutched at her breast, feeling as though her heart had been tossed into a snowstorm. Yet it was not fear or sorrow that made her blood run cold. No. It was _rage._

_I refuse this,_ Nora thought, rising slowly to her feet as her fingers curled into fists. _I_ refuse. _Victor cannot be dead. Not now. Not while I still have breath. I...I…_

_“I will not let him die.”_

 

* * *

"Then I defy you, stars." -Romeo,  _Romeo and Juliet_ by William Shakespeare 

 


End file.
